Huge success of the Arcapita Open in Bahrain

2/8/2009 – The Kingdom of Bahrain is an microstate in the Persian Gulf, nested between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In 2002 Vladimir Kramnik played a match against Deep Fritz here, this year, for the second time, the Bahrain Chess Club staged an International Open with 14 grandmasters. One of them fell in love with the country and wants to stay there forever. Giant photo report by Mikhail Golubev.

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Huge success of the Arcapita Open

Report from Bahrain by GM Mikhail Golubev

To begin with, I would like to express my gratitude to organisers of the Arcapita
International Chess Championship for the invitation to play and at the same
time to cover this tournament, which took place from 24 January - 2 February
2009.

A majority of my compatriots know next to nothing about this small, modern
country, the Kingdom of Bahrain. A British colleague suggested that the informal
title of my round reports could be 'A Ukrainian in Bahrain', which is somewhat
more exotic than a Englishman in New York. But a big event like Kramnik vs Deep
Fritz 2002 match was held here, so the chess-players are among those who definitely
have heard about Bahrain, has have the Formula 1 fans, and, yes, in Bahrain
they also have the very best horses in the world!

The Bahrain Chess Club is only three years old, has no permanent venue, and
no governmental budget support. Nevertheless, the International Open was organised
here already for a second time. Thanks to efforts of the new tournament's sponsor,
the Arcapita Bank, this year's event was much stronger than the previous one.
Almost 100 players from exactly 20 countries included 45 foreign players and
14 grandmasters.

Strictly speaking, the tournament was taking place in the capital of Bahrain,
Manama. But, as the country as small (its population is approximately one million,
just like in my hometown of Odessa), people tend to say just 'Bahrain', rather
than 'Manama'.

Opening ceremony

The tournament was opened in its beautiful venue, the Alumni Club, on Saturday
January 24th

Guests at the opening: the head of the Arab Chess Federation Ibrahim Al-Banai,
the CEO of Arcapita Atif Abdulmalik and businessman Abdulrahman Jamsheer

Tournament director Jamal Abdulghaffar

The CEO of Arcapita, Atif Abdulmalik, starts a giant chess game. Next to
him are Jamal Abdulghaffar and the Minister of Industry and Commerce Dr. Hassan
Fakhro

A Bahrain military orchestra

The symbolic opening game was played by Pave Tregubov and the Egyptian Grandmaster
Basem Amin

2000 European Champion Tregubov was the The top seed. He is a Russian Grandmaster
who has been living in Paris for many years.

Second seed Vadim Malakhatko (right) also played a symblolic game, against
Ahmed Adly

I even met two non-playing grandmasters and old friends of mine: Alex Raetsky
(Russia) and Sarkhan Guliev (Azerbaijan), who came as coaches with their pupils
from UAE.

GM Alexander Raetsky (second from left) with his pupils

GM Sarkhan Guliev (right) with his pupils

The playing hall, covered with the trademark Arab carpets

The flags of twenty different countries adorn the venue

GMs from the North: Aloyzas Kveinys, Lithuania, and myself, Ukraine

Mohamed Abdullah (Bahrain) vs GM Vadim Malakhatko

A young Indian talent

GM Pavel Tregubov vs Sanajaya Gunawarkona (Sri Lanka)

Al Haddad Mohamed (Bahrain) vs GM Yannick Pelletier

There are no internationally rated female chess-players in Bahrain as of
now...

... but hopefully some will emerge soon, like Dalal Al-Ghasra above

...or Aysha Mutaywea of Bahrain

Mommy's capturing a pawn!

GM Essam El Gindy following GM Valentin Iotov's game

A dangerous tactician: IM Mohamed Ezat of Egypt

Vadim Malakhatko at work

Malakhatko's spouse IM Anna Zozulia

Free day: gala dinner in the Bahrain National Museum

January 29 was a free day at the tournament, and a Gala Dinner in the Bahrain
National Museum was organised. Without doubt, it was the most memorable museum
I have ever visited personally. Let pictures speak for themselves!

Visitors admire the wooden artisans in the museum

Blacksmiths at work producing blades and miscellaneous instruments of restraint

Preparing meals for the museum guests...

... who partake of Arab delicacies at the evening buffet

The outdoor festive meal in the cool Bahrain night

The winners

The key game of the final round, Malakhatko-Iotov, ended peacefully. This result
meant that Vadim Malakhatko was the winner of the Arcapita International Chess
Championship 2009. Having half a point less, Iotov took second place. Elshan
Moradiabadi, grandmaster from Iran, defeated his compatriot GM Amir Bagheri
in the last round and took the third place.

Malakhatko has won many international tournaments, and his highest success
so far probably was winning the World Team Championship in 2001, when he played
on the Ukrainian national team. Nowadays he is representing Belgium, just like
Anna Zozulia.

Indian IM Roy Chowdhury, who drew with GM Rasul Ibrahimov in the final round,
scored his second grandmaster norm. Another GM norm was achieved in Bahrain
by the Georgian IM Davit Jojua, but he had all the required norms already and
only needs to reach the 2500 rating mark to get his title. FM Moklis Adnani
from Morocco, who scored six points, made an IM norm.

The organising team and sponsors deserve to be congratulated for a fantastic,
successful event, which was liked by everyone! At the closing ceremony it was
announced that the next year's event will be even stronger... Special thanks
also to the tournament venue, Alumni Club-Al Adliya, Isa Bin Salman Cultural
Hall. As the tournament's top rated player GM Pavel Tregubov said in his speech
at the closing ceremony, this it is one of the very best playing halls he ever
seen.

Every day the newspaper Gulf Daily News - The voice of Bahrain devoted a large
space for the round reports by the Sport Editor Vijay Mruthyunjaya, with games,
annotated by me. This is what it looked like:

There was one exception: the final report was published on two pages! Vijay
Mruthyunjaya's articles can be found in the archives of the Gulf Daily News:

The Bahrain Sport TV channel (Reporter: Noora Khalifa, Editor: Hussian Esa)
every day worked at the tournament and it resulted in a nice, detailed TV reports.
With their permission, a sample is posted on YouTube:

One of the tournament's rating favourites, Adly, was on Wednesday on the verge
of defeat in the amazing tactical game. 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3
cxd4 5.Nxd4 a6 6.h3!? The 11th World Champion Robert Fischer scored
several wins by using this move. And such stars of the 21st century as Magnus
Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin also have had some successes with it. 6...e5
7.Nde2 b5 8.g4 Bb7 9.Bg2 h6 [More common is 9...b4 ] 10.Ng3
g6 11.0-0 Nbd7

12.a4. Instead, 12.Be3 was played before. There Black may
try 12...Nb6!? 12...b4 13.Nd5 Nxd5 14.exd5 Rc8? A tempting
move: Black targets the c2 pawn. But, perhaps, it would have been better to
develop the bishop by 14...Bg7! 15.f4!

15...Qb6+. With the idea of 16.Kh1 Qc5!. I do not see how
Black could have developed his forces comfortably: 15...exf4 16.Bxf4 Ne5 , planning
...Bg7, is answered by 17.Qe1 Qb6+ 18.Be3 Qa5 19.Qf2!;
Or 15...Qc7 16.Rf2 exf4 17.Bxf4 and 17...Ne5?! , again planning ...Bg7, is refuted
tactically by 18.Bxe5 dxe5 19.d6!

Post scriptum

When I arrived in Bahrain I was armed with some knowledge from the Wikipedia
and other sources. I was aware, for example, that it is an island (or, well,
an archipelago – but one island is much bigger than the others).

What surprised me most here is that everyone whom I met, without exceptions,
were able to converse in English. And the liberalism. Bahrain has the reputation
of the most liberal country of the Arab world (it is also the smallest Arab
country, by the way). In comparison, the Netherlands is often called the most
liberal country in Europe. But liberalism always ends somewhere. In Bahrain,
it is not allowed to drink alcohol on the streets, which seems to be a good
idea. It is harder to understand why smoking is now forbidden in all Dutch restaurants.
While the absence of the smoking areas in the airport transit zones (e.g. in
Istanbul, where I still have to spend a couple of hours on my way home), is
just a humiliation, and nothing else. When I think about this, I would prefer
to stay in Bahrain forever.

Credits

In this report used are photos by A. Jalil S.M. Ayyad, Jaffar Ali, Jamal E.
Abdulghaffar.

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

The introductory position of the Kasparov Gambit can occur after 1 d4,1 Nf3 and 1 c4, which can appeal to a wide range of players. The usual move order is 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 Nf3 cxd4 4 Nxd4 e5!? 5 Nb5 d5 6 cxd5 Bc5 bringing us to a very sharp position. On this 60 mins, FIDE Senior Trainer Andrew Martin argues the case from the Black side, showing both classic Kasparov masterpieces and games from the present day and suggests that White's defensive task is not easy. This is a practical gambit which will help players at all levels to win more games. It is ideal for must-win situations with Black. It is a gambit that White cannot decline,as if he does, Black gets a good position instantly. White must take up the cudgels and fight!